Welcome to my deer fly blog. This blog documents my experience of trapping thousands of deer flies at my house (which is in the woods) using Tanglefoot Tangle-Trap Sticky Coating on blue plastic cups attached to a black-and-white umbrella. I trap hundreds of deer flies each day in the mid-morning and then I can work outside all day (even without a hat) and not be bothered by a single deer fly. This blog describes my method and presents my data. (Click on a date below to jump to that day’s post.)

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Saturday, September 7, 2013

The 2013 Deer Fly Season Has Ended

I have to admit that I was not very diligent about going out and trapping deer flies every day this season. One reason for this is that I was out of town for several stretches this summer, and other days I stayed inside because it was raining (we had a lot of rainy mornings this summer). But the biggest reason for my inconsistent trapping efforts is because there were relatively low numbers of deer flies this season and so I didn't always get motivated to go out trapping. I kind of wish they had been worse so that I would have been more motivated to go outside and trap them. (Oh my goodness, did I really just say that?!?) For instance, Fly Trapper (see the comments he has left on some of these posts) was very very dedicated and determined to trap every deer fly that dared to exist on his property this season. Fly Trapper lives in the same county as I do. I applaud his efforts!! I, on the other hand, did not match his dedication this year. Naughty me!! I promise that next season I will go out trapping every day regardless of how low or high the deer fly numbers will be. I hope I didn't make next year's numbers big by allowing those pesky deer flies to breed while I wasn't trapping them. I guess I'll be paying for it next year. I'm also predicting that the wet conditions this year are going to yield a huge juicy crop of fierce deer flies next season. So I'm guessing we'll all be trapping lots and lots of deer flies in 2014. (I hope I'm wrong!)

In any case, below are my numbers for this year. While the total number is not a good reflection of how the season went (because I skipped so many days), you can still, nonetheless, see the trend of how many deer flies were around at each stage of the season. This season surely lasted a long time. Remember, I spotted the first deer fly on June 16, but didn't start trapping until July 8 (see previous post). And yet I was still catching deer flies as late as Aug 28. So while the numbers were lower on any given day this season (again, I believe that is due mostly to the fact that last season was so very very dry), the length of the season certainly wasn't shortened.

And the deer flies that did exist this season seemed so timid compared to all previous seasons. I don't know why. I continued to be able to be outside and not be bothered by a single deer fly all season. But when I'd go out trapping with my umbrella, I would get significant numbers of deer flies trapped. Much to my surprise most days, because, like I said, they never came out and attacked me this year whenever I was out and about. Very strange. Again, that's why I often felt unmotivated to go trap them. But I won't be fooled next year. I'll go trapping even if I think there are none of them around!

7 comments:

We applaud you for creating this site so that hopefully more people begin to trap and so that we can see if our efforts will decrease the population. I trapped approximately 3000 compared to last year approx. 7000. I am confident that next year will be even less. I trapped twice a day from the first week in June until mid August. I missed one day (due to a broken leg) and noticed that they even attack during rain. Evenings were the most successful for me and temp wasn't much of a factor. Thanks for creating this site and I will talk to you next year.

Hi Lauren: I would be honored to have my blog referenced/linked/whatever on your website. Using "Umbrella Girl" as my name would be fine. Good luck with your website and your Girl Scout Gold Award! :-)

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You are very welcome to leave a comment, ask a question, share your own experience, give feedback. I will, however, be moderating comments and will not approve any that are inappropriate (but don't worry, I am not easily offended).